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New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

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Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#41
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite questions to ask people is something like: "Imagine a button appears in front of you. Pressing it will snap all human beings painlessly out of existence. Do you push the button?" Some people get caught in minutiae about downstream effects, I tell them it can go however they want (house pets are free or gone too, planes land harmlessly, etc) In my circles, I've found it's about 50/50 button pushers…

God what an awful prospect. How about when you push the button it only removes the button pushers, so the rest of us are free to continue enjoying our existence.

Well, some people do choose suicide but I have a feeling that you'd be uncomfortable discussing assisted suicide. These conversations around humanity and suffering typically end in thought terminating takes such as yours. Why even respond if you're effectively throwing your hands up in the air and ignoring nuance?

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#42
Here's a link to the bill if you are interested in who sponsored and cosponsored it. It's a total of 24 people, so it had a fair bit of support.

If you live in the district of one of these people you might consider contacting them to let them know your opinion.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4673...

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#43
I find it odd we need legislation to prevent this.

There are not enough consumers to care? Or maybe with legislation we get better outcomes due to scaling effects?

If we are willing to use legislation, could we tax such gestation crates, and use that tax revenue to breed unconscious pigs? Or find a way to disable consciousness in their brain? Or fund lab meat? I'm sure small labs are doing this, but if we are at the point of legislation, I imagine there is enough willpower to solve this problem rather than bandaids.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#44
post #22

The sooner we get to true lab grown meat the better Meat is nice but would be better if we can skip the whole suffering thing

I'll be pleased to let you eat that for me.

I mean if it’s functionally identical then I would.

Not super interested in pink slime style concoctions either

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#45

Humanity is almost definitely going to wipe itself out in the not too distant future through an avoidable (if not for the selfish greed of many of us) climate change resource war Great Filter event. This used to really bother me, but lately I'm thinking it is probably for the best.

> This used to really bother me, but lately I'm thinking it is probably for the best.

The older I get, the more careful I am to remember there's young people left in my wake and I get to decide whether I owe them anything or not - and, I make a personal belief that I do, a very great deal in fact. So getting comfortable that the whole system is damned and worth tossing is very convenient but too cavalier for me to find comfort in

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#46

I find it odd we need legislation to prevent this. There are not enough consumers to care? Or maybe with legislation we get better outcomes due to scaling effects? If we are willing to use legislation, could we tax such gestation crates, and use that tax revenue to breed unconscious pigs? Or find a way to disable consciousness in their brain? Or fund lab meat? I'm sure small labs are doing this, but if we are at the…

Consumers probably don't know all of the conditions involved in making any of the products they buy. That information is generally not on the label, and even environmental and conditions based labels are often vague and hard to interpret.

Also in an economy of rising costs, people are going to choose affordable options even if they might be vaguely aware of worse conditions happening somewhere else, far away from the grocery store aisle where they are making that choice for their family.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#47
post #22

The sooner we get to true lab grown meat the better Meat is nice but would be better if we can skip the whole suffering thing

It's not even nice. People ate meat because fresh fruit and vegetables weren't available all year round or even at all. All good food has plants to make it taste nice. You can easily just skip the meat and go straight for the flavour.

Your comment makes no sense. If plants weren’t around for humans to eat then how did the animals humans eat survive?

Humans eat animals because they are a denser faster nutrition than plants. More bang for your buck. Trying to act like humans “only eat animals because” is ignoring reality.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#48

Does anyone else ever find it odd that in posts like this the person posts a sad picture of a pig instead of a screenshot of the page of the bill they're talking about? I think "a provision that would condemn millions of pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates" is in fact horrific, however, outrage is the currency on places like X. Posting a page number sounds specific, but then why not post the page (or quote it)? Pa…

2 seconds on Google leads you the sponsor of the bill bragging about doing what the OP is complaining about: : https://hinson.house.gov/media/press-releases/hinson-introdu...

The insane language in the sponsor's own press release tells me all I need to know about who the evil side on this bill is.

California prop 12: https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/fd/mb-fdp-03-2022-a.asp

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#49

Does anyone else ever find it odd that in posts like this the person posts a sad picture of a pig instead of a screenshot of the page of the bill they're talking about? I think "a provision that would condemn millions of pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates" is in fact horrific, however, outrage is the currency on places like X. Posting a page number sounds specific, but then why not post the page (or quote it)? Pa…

fwiw, i found it helpful, i had no idea what a gestation crate is. i don’t think the photo is sad or manipulative, the sad part is what is being done to the pigs! and seeing a photo of what is done to the pigs is all i needed to make up my mind. it’s like the difference between posting a document that references “enhanced interrogation techniques” vs seeing a photo of what was actually done, it has a very different impact. i agree some kind of a citation would be nice though, so i don’t have to go digging about what to say when i contact my representative about.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that line of "enjoying your existence" making no mention of the monumental harm we cause to every biome on the planet is exactly the kind of selfishness that the button pushers would like to eradicate.

Biomes are not moral subjects and don't deserve consideration. (Pigs are).

Biome is just a fancy term that encompasses a set of moral subjects.
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